Holmes - Old French Carole

7/27/2019 Holmes - Old French Carole

1/4

Linguistic Society of America

Old French CaroleAuthor(s): Urban T. HolmesReviewed work(s):Source: Language, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Mar., 1928), pp. 28-30Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409500 .

Accessed: 29/12/2011 05:22

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Linguistic Society of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toLanguage.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lsahttp://www.jstor.org/stable/409500?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/409500?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lsa


2/4

OLD FRENCH CaroleURBAN T. HOLMES

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINAThe chief meanings of this word as registered by Godefroy, are 'round

dance' and 'circle'.' The difficulty lies in whether it is to be tracedto a Celtic etymon or to the Latin choraules 'a flute player'.2 Skeat inthe second edition of his English Etymological Dictionary suggested theCeltic origin. He was severely criticized by C. Nigra, in the followingterms :3Le prof. Skeat appuie son 6tymologie celtique sur 'autorit6 du CornishLexiconde Williams et cite, entre autres, les termes bret. karoll, corn. carol, gael. carull,etc. ['song'] dont cependant la provenance frangaise semble bien 6vident.Skeat abandoned his Celtic etymology in the subsequent editions ofthe dictionary and accepted choraules as the starting point. JosephLoth took essentially the same point of view. He wrote that 'le galloiscarawl ['song'] ainsi que le cornique semblent emprunter au vieux-fran-gais carolepar l'anglais carol, de choraulare'. But he added: 'L'armori-cain coroll "danse" = corolla.'4Now Breton, Welsh, and Cornish carol, carawl, or karoll, and possiblyManx carval, meaning 'carol' or 'song' are obviously borrowings fromthe English as M. Loth believed; but Loth saw with his customary

keeness that Breton coroll 'a dance' must be derived from somethingelse. The semantics of his explanation that Lat. corolla 'little crown'> coroll 'a dance' have never been accepted and require no refutationhere. It was by no means necessary to look so far afield.There exists in both surviving branches of the Celtic tongue a nativeword cor, meaning 'circle'. Morris Jones gives the following history:51 Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue frangaise etc., Paris, 1880-1901.2 First suggested by Diez in his Etymologisches Wirterbuch der romanischen

Sprachen 539 (Bonn, 1878).1Rom. 35. 519, note 2.4Les Mots latins dans les langues brittoniques145 (Paris, 1892).6 A WelshGrammar159 (Oxford Press, 1913).28


3/4

OLD FRENCH CAROLE 29IE *qer-> Kop coraula > coraulare > caroler 'to dance a rounddance'. This I can not do. Choraulescertainly exists in classic Latinwith the meaning noted."' For Vulgar Latin and the later periodDuCange shows that coraula was preserved by Petronius and OrdericusVitalis, and choraulesby a number of others. It retained the meaningof jocularius or 'minstrel' down through the 12th century. By thatsame period it had also acquired the secondary meaning in question,that of 'circle' or 'circular dance'; e.g . ... . 'non in moremnostrorum ordo disponitur, sed circulatim in modum coraulae sepulcrumunius multa ambiunt.' (Guibert de Nogent, De Vita Sua, ch. I).This would mean the following semantic changes: choraules 'a fluteplayer' > coraula 'a jongleur' > coraulare 'to act as a jongleur' >coraula 'a round dance'. If we admit this series we must also agree, itseems, to a confusion with our Breton word coroll 'to dance a circulardance'. The old Welsh cor 'a circle' has certainly suffered a contamina-

6 VergleichendeGrammatikder keltischen Sprachen 1. 121 (Gittingen, 1909).7Macbain's Etymological Dictionary of the GaelicLanguage71 (Stirling, 1911).8 Grandgent, An Introductionto VulgarLatin ?186(Boston, 1907).g Pedersen, ibid., 1. 217.10See Forcellini Totius latinitatis Lexicon etc., Schneebergae1831-5.


4/4

30 URBAN T. HOLMEStion with Lat. chorus, to judge from the modern meanings of the word:'circle; college; choir; pew; stall, crib'."

In conclusion I shall state again that the Breton coroll doubtless hadsomething to do with the history of OF caroler. If it was not the soleetymon it must certainly have influenced the direct one, its homonymcoraulare < choraules.

11Spurrell's Welsh-EnglishDictionary, Carmarthen 1920.

Documents

Holmes - Old French Carole